Succotash In A Nutshell

Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast is a show that features other comedy soundcasts (AKA "podcasts") and in an effort to not only expose audiences to the wide range of comedy offerings available, but also to broaden the appeal of podcasts in general. Hosted by Marc Hershon, whose background in the worlds of comedy, writing and product naming gives him the chops necessary to come off sounding like a blustering know-it-all.
The show is produced and engineered by Joe Paulino out of Sausalito's Studio P, "The Home Of The Hit." Our associate producer is Tyson Saner, and our booth announcer is Bill Heywatt.

Welcome to Epi30 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast! We're back to having a bunch of clips this time around — what I like to think of as "Succotash Prime" — and a couple of other things besides.

Caleb Medley

Kicking off with a serious note here on the blogside of things, I wanted to do what we could as listeners, podcasters, comedians and friends, to help out Caleb Medley and his family. Just one of the tragic stories to emerge from the Dark Knight Rises massacre on July 20th in Aurora, Colorado, Caleb is a young up-and-coming standup comedian from the Denver area and was at the movie with his wife Katie. He got shot in the eye and is in critical condition as I write this. He has yet to see the face of his new son, born the day following the tragedy. Comedians are already rallying (as well as many others) to raise funds to help cover the cost of what is going to be an expensive recovery. If you'd like to help, you can click here to Support Caleb online OR mail a check to:

Support Caleb Medley

c/o Canon National Bank

401 East Main Street

Florence, CO 81226

During this episode, I play a call that came into our Succotash Hotline from comedian/actor/friend-of-the-show Rick Overton, who asks for your help with much-needed support for Caleb.

My Crappy Week is a new daily podcast coming from comedian Orny Adams and his guests, who have been all fellow comedians so far. The shortish episodes (20 minutes or less) make for a fun listen that’s easy to squeeze in during the drive to work or wherever.

I’m so glad that Doug Benson gave us the nod to let us feature clips from his show. (We had a bit of a twitter squabble about it early on in Succotash's early days...) It’s a damned funny show, even when things go horribly, horribly wrong. Jeff Garland, TJ Miller and Pete Holmes were the guests and they just can’t stop being…themselves.

We've got a clip from a new “a dark comedy sketch show" podcast from Britain called 4 AM Cab. Hosts Lee Wilson and Rachel Wheeley have an open-door policy for writers and they invite all comers to send in scripts for consideration.

It’s no secret that I like helping my friends out who decide that Kickstarter.com can help them out. The latest campaign to catch my eye is the one from pals Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine. They produced a horror movie spoof called The Selling, about a real estate agent trying to unload a haunted house. It came out last year and has been making the film festival circuit. Which is great but they’d love to let regular folk see it. I have, and I reviewed it when it debuted and that’s up on Huffington Post. So they want to get the film into some theaters, which means they have to pay to rent those movie houses. During this episode, I caught up with then on Skype to find out more about it.

I was invited to co-host epi44 of The DHead Factor, which is harder than it sounds considering host Jason "Jabs" McNamara is in Canberra, Australia and I'm in San Francisco, USA. Different time zones, different seasons, but we managed to pull off over an hour of podcast shenanigans. You can hear a slice of the magic on Succotash this episode!

Darren Staley’s “Comedy on a cushion” takes place live via Blogcast Radio every week and he's been getting some cool guests, such as Andy Kindler. It's a little embarrassing how gushy DS gets at one point what AK and he get into a chat about Twitter. Not that I wouldn't do the same thing if Kindler started following @SuccotashShow...

The Brit And The American is a couple – Thomas Moore and Alba Lewis – who tag themselves as “the posh Brit and the redneck American”. This new show is a chatty, observational style of commentary about the pair and their travels from their very different perspectives.

I’ve featured the guys from Cinematic Method before and I love what they do. Reviews. But not movie reviews. Movie TRAILER reviews. That’s right. They watch trailers, try to figure out what the movie is about, then guess what the movie’s score on Rotten Tomatoes will be. Inspired. But in between the trailer trashing, they talk about other stuff…

If you like podcasts that feature chats with porn stars, there are a number of them. But The Man Cave podcast also covers sports, comic books, beer…pretty much anything that could count as furnishing in a true man cave. Jeff and Bobby, your hosts, sent along a snippet from their talk with “reformed” porn star Bree Olson, which chats about going legit in Hollywood. (They're not just on iTunes, BTW: They also livestream on Ustream every Thursday night at 9 PM!)

Celebrating their one-year-anniversary of podcasting this week, Epic Rant has been on my radar for a while but haven’t had a chance to feature a clip until…well, they sent one in. I'm not a sports guy and so I’m not really sure what they’re talking about here. Guys fighting, maybe? Anyay, check ‘em out all this week and wish ‘em a happy anniversary!

SPECIAL FEATURE! This is not a clip of The Mustache Rangers - it's a whole show! And a great moment for Succotash. Aric McKeown and Corey Anderson had put out a call for podcasters to send in clips from their shows that they could then use as springboards for the improvised MR episodes. I sent them one of our Henderson's Pants ads. So sit back, relax, and listen to what these guys did with it.

Back from his short writing sabbatical comes raging moderate, Succotash’s Ambassador to the Middle, it’s Will Durst with his Burst O’ Durst. In his sights this time: Mitt Romney and the Bain of his existence.

Whew! That's a lot of podcast for the money. Speaking of which, if you'd like to help us to offset production costs so that we can keep bringing you the finest buffet of podcastery that the internet has to offer, just click the Donate button in the upper right area of our homepage. We'll take whatever you can give and we'll even thank you during an upcoming episode of Succotash for your trouble!

The Succotash format is pretty much out the window this week, because I had a chance to sit down for an in-depth backstage interview with Craig Shoemaker when he was at Tommy T’s in San Francisco recently. So that takes up a bunch of show, only leaving time for a couple of podcast clips and a couple of other goodies. Plus Craig is not this episode's only interview. More on that in a paragraph or two.

Regarding "Shoe", if you're not familiar with him, where the hell have you been? The guy's been around for about three decades, doing standup, acting, writing, radio...the list of stuff he's done goes on and on. Here are a few particulars: He caught fire for years as his deep-voiced character called The Lovemaster, but that is backed up by solid time served as the consummate journeyman comic. He's shot comedy specials for TV (including his most recent, Daditude), starred in films (such as Should Have Been Romeo) and even has written a couple of children's books (such as What You Have Now, Your Daddy Had Then.)

He still does club dates and is the host of Laugh It Off, a live two-hour video webcast/podcast that "airs" every Monday from noon until 2 PM. I caught up with him during his recent stint in the Bay Area and it was a great time that had been put off way too long. (Craig and I hit Los Angeles about the same time in the late 80s and we ended up hanging out a bit and even writing material together for a while.)

But before we corner Craig in the green room, I kick off the show with a short chat with friend-of-the-show Phil Leirness! He, of podcasting's Thje Chillpak Hollywood Hour, along with co-host Dean Haglund have kicked off a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a new documentary project. Hieroglyph of The Human Soul features the art, philosophy and insights of actor/artist/ philosopher Leigh McCloskey. While it's not a comedic subject, I figure it's worthwhile to spare a little webtime for a guy who believes so passionate about the positive aspects of the human spirit. You can click the link above or in the side column of the SuccotashShow.com website to get in on this movie-making opportunity.

Larry Miller is on the mend from the accident he had MONTHS ago. He’s still not back up to 100%, which is why they are rerunning episodes of This Week With Larry Miller over on the ACE Broadcasting network. But Larry speaks! That’s right. This week, there is a short message from him at the top of the show. So I grabbed it for you here.

I’ve featured these guys before, but it’s been a while, so thanks for the clip, guys! The S&M Rants Podcast is a weekly humor podcast featuring co-hosts Shane Birley and Monica Hamburg. Want to hear bad erotica, painful Craigslist ads or learn about Chewbacca sex fantasies? Join them - and their guest judges - for the deranged goodness.

We do have a classic Henderson's Pants spot this epi. Our Burst O' Durst segment is NOT around this week, as political comic Will Durst is on a sabbatical to write a new e-book. He should be back next episode.

You can now rate Succotash on Stitcher Smart Radio. It's just a simple Thumbs Up (or Thumbs Down) and all you have to do is click over to our listing on their site. You can also give us stars and dash off a quick review over on iTunes, which really helps us to gain visibility in the sea of over 10,000 podcasts that are out there these day.

That's about it, but isn't it enough? With the two interviews and the clips we have, the show nets out at about one hour and twenty minutes. So I hope you brought enough appetite for all of it, and that you have room left to pass the Succotash.